The conventional progressive wisdom is that the Trump Administration will be bad for cities and for transit users. But in recent decades, a unified Republican government has been better for public transit than a divided government.

An efficient and equitable transport system must be diverse to serve diverse travel demands. Planners need better tools to quantify and communicate the benefits of walking, cycling and public transit to sometimes skeptical decision makers.

Finding Ways to Create "Emerald Necklaces" in Built-Out Cities

A string of connected parks laced through cities has been a vision of city planners since the days of Olmsted. Ben Welle of the Center for City Park Excellence has some ideas how that that vision can be implemented today.

Welle details how rail corridors, waterfronts and stream corridors, easements, underused streets, bike boulevards and cycle tracks can be used to connect parks into a network.

Welle writes, "All of these ways can be used to create linkages - one system may include an old rail corridor, a stream or river, an existing parkway and upgrading streets where none of those are possible.

Years ago, Frederick Law Olmsted remarked that no one should be a long walk's time from parkways, and that the citizens using them, whether going to and from a park, or to and from some form of business, may gain some 'substantial recreative advantage.' Today, it's not that different of a story."

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